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Paper: Investigating Zero-Metallicity Low Mass Stars
Volume: 353, Stellar Evolution at Low Metallicity: Mass Loss, Explosions, Cosmology
Page: 307
Authors: Lau, H.B.; Tout, C.A.
Abstract: The first generation of stars, commonly referred to as Population- III stars or zero-metallicity stars, should have the composition after Big Bang nucleosynthesis. Hydrogen burning proceeds via the proton-proton chain rather than the CNO cycle owing to absence of CNO elements. It is much more inefficient and is less temperature dependent. So zero-metallicity stars are considerably hotter and their main sequence life time is much shorter. We find that, for stars of masses larger than 100MSolar, carbon is produced at the bottom of the hydrogen shell during the core helium burning phase because of its higher temperature. The CNO luminosity is driven up by the carbon packet produced. High resolution models are needed to resolve the carbon packet; otherwise numerical artifacts, such as convection zones, can appear in the model.
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